meditation is something highly speculated as being weird or too spiritual. While it can be used to enter altered reality, it also has very practical advantages as well. In this topic, I will discuss the health, spiritual, and happiness Benefits of meditation and different ways to practice.
Health Benefits
Everyone should be looking for ways to improve their health. With the advancement of technology, information can be received in seconds anywhere! My personal benefit from meditation is that it has helped me with my time urgency.
After a five to 10 minute meditation I feel more at ease and less rushed.
Sometimes during my fifteen-minute exercise, I feel like time is literally slowing down. Now it doesn’t completely end my time urgency, but it does give me a two to three hour relaxation period from it. It also fights the stress I have sometimes from putting too much on my plate. from the practical viewpoint of meditation just think of it as a breathing exercise.
For me, stress is usually initiated by thoughts, which I believe is the same for the majority of people. Whether it’s from work, debt, or just kids, when you meditate you put your thoughts from your mind, thus creating a time-off period for your brain.
One last main personal benefit for me is that I see how it increases my focus on other hobbies or even work.
Let us use our practical brain again for a second. Imagine if you can just sit there concentrating on your breathing for 10-15 minutes then that focus can be used anywhere else. I can work on music and can still be productive a for longer time than before. In the past, I would say I was being productive, but I actually ended up just sitting there listening to my work loop for an hour.
Spiritual meditation
Now let's turn off our practical brain and get to the exciting stuff! I would like to believe humans have hope for a higher presence that created this universe and who wouldn’t want to visit their maker or talk to them? No matter what religion you practice there is a form of meditation involved with it. In western religion, it is called praying.
In oriental religion, they believe in the art of meditation to talk to their god or spirits. Now personally I have never got to the point of astral Projecting or having a Kundalini Awakening, but I have been trying for a year or so. I can only rely on information from the stories of other friends and online post.
Many believe that there are secrets to this world we live in that can be unlocked through Astral Projection, and I say why not try it? A Kundalini awakening is more a paradigm shift in your consciousness. Now the scientist in me has to let it be known that this could all just be a load of rubbish, but you never truly know unless you try it.
Happiness in Meditation
Meditation can always lead to extreme happiness and enjoyment of a fulfilling life.
I won’t say that meditation cause happiness directly, but it can lead to a change in your habits (Read "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg). With me it all started by practicing spiritual meditation, then I noticed I wanted to start eating healthy and exercise.
From that, I started reading more often and trying new ideas, which eventually brought me here. Meditation has also made me more conscious of mother earth. It has also indirectly shown me that happiness is about passion and love for people and ideas rather than just money and material things. I have seen myself grow, I believe, at a faster rate than I have previously experienced.
Meditation techniques
Let’s discuss a few types of meditations that I have practiced and their individual benefits.
I will start off with the one I discovered first which is spiritual meditation. From this, I discovered more about other religions which led me to believe that all religion can co-exist in harmony.
During this time I did a lot of inner reflections and spent time trying to discover my passion(s). Next on the list would be Affirmations meditation. So in this style, you just sit and either say positive affirmations to yourself or play a video. This is great for building self-esteem and for me it helped a lot with staying motivated daily. I also saw it raise my confidence and lower my worrying.
The last type and the newest one which I have started a week ago from this date is Mindfulness Meditation. I got informed about this through a Sam Harris Podcast.
Mindfulness meditation is basically performed by concentrating on breathing in and out and actually feeling exactly where it passes. During this time you just try to block your thoughts (which is impossible) and each time you start to wander off just go back to concentrating on your breathing.
This helps with controlling emotions that you sometimes feel get the best of you. You also practice asking yourself why does a situation make you feel a specific way? I still have a lot of research to do on this one but if you would like to know more just search for it on Google.
Just start
Meditation is something I believe that is going to be the norm in the next five to 10 years. More scientific studies are being conducted and each is bringing in positive results.
Some studies show an increase in grey matter around the brain, higher concentration, and a host of other benefits (health benefits). Please take adding meditation to your daily lives into consideration. Even two minutes can be beneficial. Just start.
